Content for teachers and students about robotics in our world. Is robotics the Perfect Platform for 21st Century Learning? Read on!.. Would you like your student robotics activities presented here? Leave a comment or email me. And check out Robotics for Teachers PODCAST @ http://www.roboticsforteachers.com/

Sunday, September 2, 2012

In the book Getting Started with LEGO Robotics, I describe at length the highly effective instructional approach of posing "Learning Challenges" to students who participate in the First LEGO League competition. The motivating and focusing effect of tasking students with "Real Word Challenges" as a context for them to create, build, program, and run LEGO Robots is impressive; actually it's one of the best approaches to teaching and learning I've observed during a 40 year career as an educator. The following advertisement I found in Wired Magazine (August 2012) involves The Arduino, another variety of easy to handle Robot/Processor that can work well for students (although some feel LEGO Robitics works better for newbie teachers and students... but that's a discussion for another post/another day). Getting back to the concept of Learning Challenges, though. Based on this ad (see the quote below) I think the idea has been elevated a notch or two by the authors of a soon to be released novel, which reportedly involves students in learning challenges and explains how to work with Arduino. I admire this creative approach that not only teaches STEM content in that most wonderful way, hands-on Student Robotics, but further motivates students through reading literature and involves them in Language Arts... cool idea!

" ... James and Harold have written a fictional story of two students trapped in a damaged space station. The reader of the book uses an actual Arduino, and a variety of components that can be found at RadioShack, to simulate the various challenges the kids ace on the space station. The novel teaches children how to build circuits and program. In Arduino Adventures: Escape from Gemini Station, James and Harold provide eight challenges for kids using the Arduino. The book provides a fun experience that puts the reader in the story and teches them along the way..."

RadioShack has put up a website with more information on this type of application for the Arduion: http://radioshackdiy.com/project-gallery/tough-arduino I love the way they invite user to submit their own project to its online Project Gallery
Here's a taste of what Arduino could be for school age students:

See article, too: "Strawberry-picking robot knows when they're ripeJapan prepares to unleash a strawberry-harvesting robot on the world.

Strawberry fields will forever be changed by robots that can automatically identify and pick ripe berries, according to Japanese researchers.
Developed by the minds at an organization aptly abbreviated IAM-BRAIN (that's the Institute of Agricultural Machinery's Bio-oriented Technology Research Advancement Institution), the machines can harvest more than 60 percent of a strawberry crop.

The robot targets berries that are at least 80 percent red.

Even though each machine takes nine seconds to pick a strawberry, they can cut harvesting time from 500 hours to 300 hours for a 1,000-square-meter field (about a quarter-acre), BRAIN's Shigehiko Hayashi explains in the video below.
The robots can also pick strawberries at night. There's more video of the machine at work here, on BRAIN's Japanese page.
The berry bot has a stereo camera system that images the strawberries in 3D. Image-processing algorithms gauge their ripeness, and if a berry is at least 80 percent red, the machine neatly snips it at the stem and deposits it in a bin.Read the full article at its source:http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20025402-1.html

Click on book cover for information

Getting Started with LEGO Robotics. Anyone who works with kids can do LEGO Robotics, a rich and highly motivating platform for important STEM Learning! (surprisingly affordable, too) This books explains it all!